Marylhurst University finds long-hidden arch

A carpenter, in an "oh, wow" moment uncovers a bit
of the school's past

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

SARAH DUNLAP and DANA TIMS

The Oregonian Staff

LAKE OSWEGO W hen Hans Hoogendam began cutting into a wall
during renovations at Marylhurst University recently, he
only wanted to make sure his saw didn't cut into
electrical wiring.

He didn't realize that he was opening a portal to
history.

But that's just what Hoogendam, a carpenter with
Schommer & Sons, uncovered when he cut a small,
square-shaped hole near the top of the wall.

Behind the wall, he found a gracefully curving piece of
dark, vertical-grained fir. A good portion of it, he
observed, must have been hand carved.

Hoogendam quickly summoned Michael Lammers,
Marylhurst's vice president of finance, who has been
overseeing day-to-day operations of a $25 million campuswide
renovation.

Together, Hoogendam and Lammers scanned architectural
blueprints dated 1929 that Lammers had framed and mounted on
the walls of the administration building's lobby.
There, in two different views, they solved the mystery of
exactly what had lain behind the wall, unseen and forgotten,
for more than 35 years -- an arch over an oak performance
stage in what once served as Marylhurst's English
classroom.

Hoogendam went back, pried a few more boards loose and
uncovered the arch, which was decorated on both ends by
ornamental rosettes, entombed by a hasty, poorly conceived
mid-1970s remodel.

"I was very interested in what the extent of it
was," Lammers said. "Each hole we cut brought new
discoveries of carvings and moldings."

Although Lammers called Hoogendam's discovery
"sort of an 'oh, wow' moment," he had
been aware of the stage since he found the blueprints rolled
up in a metal canister eight years ago. He assumed the
arch's remnants had long-since been destroyed, probably
while the building was renovated in the 1970s.

The arch was walled up at a time when Marylhurst, like many private, same-sex colleges across the nation, faced declining enrollments and impending closures....